


when to run

by sodas



Category: Neon Genesis Evangelion
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-26
Updated: 2013-07-26
Packaged: 2017-12-21 09:45:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/898832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sodas/pseuds/sodas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kaworu has his hand held out, cool and dry and waiting. His mouth makes the vaguest shape: he looks close to smiling and close to feeling sad.</p>
            </blockquote>





	when to run

Kaworu is moonlit and sleepy, and, pushing through leaves and pliant reeds, he looks like a ghost in the woods. He practically glows. He isn't wearing shoes, which Shinji had realized belatedly and now regrets, but Kaworu glides over roots and stones and twigs just fine; they accommodate him like they're witnessing the coming of their prince.

"Are you sure you want to come?" Shinki asks, crushing through vegetation. He finds footholds in spreads of dead leaves, and reaches to take Kaworu's milky hand. "I shouldn't have come and gotten you, what was I thinking, dragging you out of bed... As it is... maybe you should go - home?" His own hand is sweating, but Kaworu's temperature is moon-white and cool. They keep walking, and Kaworu doesn't look over his shoulder. "Listen, Kaworu-kun, it - it wasn't right to ask this of you. I'm sorry. I'm really sorry. It's just, when I decided to go, I wanted to see what you'd say..."

"It would be lonely if you went alone," Kaworu says, so reasonably that Shinji ducks his head and nods.

"...Yeah."

"Then it's good you asked." Kaworu leads Shinji around a mossy rock, moving naturally like a cat. "It's all right to ask things of me, Shinji-kun."

Shinji scuffs his feet on a tree root that Kaworu's missed. The bark scrapes the rubber of his shoes and he teeters toward Kaworu, walking a tightrope on solid ground. He wonders what it's like to be graceful and calm. "Well, it's just... You don't ever ask me for anything - I don't want to be the only one."

A cricket stops chirping when they get too close. They both sound too human for the wildlife to accept — yes, even Kaworu, Shinji's amazed to find. Kaworu just smiles and sighs and shrugs. It's not enough, but Shinji can't say so. He clings to Kaworu's words and hand. That's not enough, either: Shinji wants to hold them both tightly, wants to squeeze, because he feels that if he doesn't, if Kaworu is allowed just inches away, he'll float off somewhere else on a current of the love of better people. Worse still, Shinji fears that the harder he squeezes, the more slippery Kaworu will become. If Kaworu knows how much Shinji wants to keep him, he'll want to run away. That's what Shinji believes, and he never knows what kind of grip to give.

'But he came with me,' Shinji thinks. He'd gone to Kaworu's bedroom window when all the stars were out with a heavy coat and a frightened face and he'd told Kaworu he was leaving home.

"To where?" Kaworu asked, with bright eyes and furrowed brows. No _why,_ since Shinji's home was joyless and Kaworu understood the importance of joy.

"I don't know," Shinji said, "but can you — do you want to come with me?" But Kaworu was climbing out of his window before Shinji was done.

So now he glides along the path of Shinji's blunders, wearing cotton pajamas and with the moon and the breeze in his hair. Shinji can see dirt on his feet and his ankle bones. He feels guilty in his own coat. "Kaworu-kun—" he starts, but bites the side of his tongue. Listening to his own neediness saps him of his goodness, and he doesn't want to leech from Kaworu, too. It's hard, though, and it's like his heart leaps past his teeth, past the gates of his molars and out into the air—it somersaults into his hesitant voice. He can never keep himself from telling Kaworu what he wants, and because of that, Kaworu's barefoot in the woods a few hours prior to dawn. "I'm so sorry," he blurts, stopping short, though the repeated apology feels trite in his mouth. Kaworu stops with him. "I _shouldn't_ have made you come, I shouldn't—"

"You didn't make me do anything," Kaworu says. He looks quizzical, like a foreigner.

"No, no, I shouldn't have asked, I - I _knew_ you would say yes, I..." Everything is tight. Shinji feels as though a great hand has scooped him up and is squeezing, crumpling him inward like an aluminum can. He retreats into himself, squats and hugs his knees, hiding his face, shoulders gone rigid and shaky like the legs of a fawn. "Why do you let me take advantage of you?" he asks, muffled and sounding pleading. Now that he's curled so close to the ground, he can feel that it has a chill, that it's damp. The carpet of veiny leaves smells musky. "Why don't you ever say no?" Even as he asks it, Shinji grimaces against his knees. He sounds so miserable, even to himself.

Kaworu doesn't crouch to Shinji's level and slowly rub his back. Adults do that; they stoop down like him and murmur and coo. It's because they don't know as much as they think do. Shinji needs to be able to look up and see Kaworu's face, and the vertical length of his spine. He needs a reason to stand up too. Kaworu has his hand held out, cool and dry and waiting. His mouth makes the vaguest shape: he looks close to smiling and close to feeling sad. "What do you want?" he asks, with a simple tone.

"I don't know," Shinji says, hiding his mouth behind his wrists.

"I don't, either," Kaworu says, "but when you do know, I would like to give it to you."

The night and the way thin clouds have been seeping over the moon make Kaworu look blue. He's like a painting in an Italian church. Shinji gapes at him. _Why?_ he almost asks, or, _Don't you know it's mean to tease someone like that?_ But Shinji's never seen Kaworu make fun of anyone in his life. All Kaworu has ever done is show Shinji the things he thought were beautiful, like small flowers and slow snails and the remains of a hatched bird egg. He has never been the one to let go of Shinji's hand.

Shinji covers his eyes with his arm to hide the dampness of his lashes and reaches for Kaworu's hand. He pulls himself up. "I think I should go home," he says quietly.

"Yes," agrees Kaworu, fitting his fingers between Shinji's.

"I won't... I won't run away again till I'm older." It's equally a promise to Kaworu, to himself, and to the dead of night. "Until I'm an adult. Until I can make my own home."

Kaworu smiles for real now, unambiguous and satisfied. They turn on their heels to retrace their steps together. He asks, "Shall I come with you then, too?"


End file.
